Wales's show pony Gavin Henson once again fails to quite hit the mark against the Barbarians

Sixty-one minutes to rescue a reputation and a career. That’s what Gavin
Henson was given. Just over an hour to convince Wales’ coach Warren Gatland
that he was worth a place in his 30-man World Cup squad.

On the outside: Gavin Henson looks on as the game goes ahead without him - and that's part of the problem for someone who is quite clearly a remarkable athlete Photo: GETTY IMAGES

He didn’t do enough for me, but that’s not to say that he won’t get his chance. You see, the problem with Henson, the allegation that has followed him throughout his time with Wales, the Lions, Ospreys, Saracens and Toulon, is that for all his undoubted talent, the lad doesn’t appear to give a damn.

His performance against the Barbarians simply added to the mystery. Henson divides opinion everywhere but especially in Wales.

In a half-empty Millennium stadium, the announcement of his name was greeted with a mixture of jeers and cheers. There’s no doubt he’s box office.

Only Stephen Jones, on the occasion of his 100th cap, and Martyn 'Nugget’ Williams, clad in Barbarians colours also trying to extend an international career, elicited more decibels.

Henson looks the part. When he came out for the warm-up, socks rolled down towards matching white boots, bouncing lightly on his chunky calves, he looked like a boxer.

The guy is wonderfully balanced; a natural athlete; poised, in control. When he ran out onto the pitch for the game proper the boxer had morphed into a prancing horse, one of those fancy dolled-up ones you seen in international dressage competitions.

There was the same high knee lift, the same sense of grace and theatre. Henson is a man who demands attention. You want to watch him.

But then the match kicked off and the problems started because, for all his muscles and body sculpture, Henson plays floppy flappy soft.

When Matt Stevens turned up for his first training session with Saracens after a lengthy ban for drug abuse, he smashed into tackle bags and piled into scrums.

Stevens was determined to make a statement, to show the doubters that he was back in business: fitter, harder, more determined.

Henson had that kind of chance against the Baa Baas but there was a lack of physicality.

Instead of driving into and through tackles to dominate the gain line, Henson folded into contact. He didn’t miss much. Henson never does.

But for a guy who was Wales’ defensive captain in his pomp, it was clear his talent lies in organisation rather than execution.

But then that’s Henson all over. The irritation comes from the fact that he clearly has the gifts to do so much more but seems not to be bothered.

Just as Stevens defined a relationship with Saracens by raising the bar in that training session, so Henson destroyed one by not taking the trouble to learn the Christian names of his team-mates during his spell at the club.

Not their nicknames, their Christian names. That’s just rude and why many think he’s arrogant. I don’t know him well enough to comment on that.

Those who do say that he can be painfully shy and is still reeling from the break-up of his relationship with Charlotte Church, the mother of his children.

What I do know is that he can be diffident on a rugby pitch. I watched him exclusively for the hour he was active and he spent an awful lot of time on the fringes of the action.

Some of that was because Wales didn’t engineer the field position or the speed of ball for Henson and colleagues to set the agenda.

But it was also because Henson is always striving to get in position for what might happen rather than dealing with what is occurring.

Again, that’s part of his attraction. Henson sees things early. His sense of space is acute. It was his floated, beautifully weighted (marginally forward) pass which led to Wales’s first try by George North.

But modern rugby requires players to act in the moment, to hustle and scrap, and Henson doesn’t do that.

He waits, aloof and alone, for the chance which may come round but which often doesn’t, either because those around him aren’t on his wavelength, or because Test rugby is too fractured and hectic for plans to come to fruition.

Maybe Henson pays an unfair price for his perspicacity. Maybe, in a better team with better players, his creativity would find an outlet. He was a bit rusty yesterday.

A couple of kicks which he tried to slide in behind an advancing defensive wall didn’t quite come off, but there was one sublime pickup on the gallop and one beautifully angled support run off a Stephen Jones break.

Jones couldn’t manage the offload. If he had, Henson would have been free and clear.

But that’s the thing about sport at this level. You are judged not by what you are capable of doing but by what you actually deliver and Henson’s return was, for me, not good enough.

It didn’t help that he was motioning to the bench to be replaced after 58 minutes. That’s not clever for a man seeking a reprieve.

And it didn’t help that Scott Williams, who came on for Henson for his debut cap after 61 minutes, lifted the energy levels noticeably.

Warren Gatland took a different view, though, naming Henson in his 45-man training squad. Potential over performance? It could be a risky call.